The Americas | Lonesome George

Heaven and shell

A debate in Ecuador over a dead tortoise

|QUITO

HE MAY have been famed for his solitude, but Lonesome George, the world’s most feted tortoise, will never have privacy. George, the last example of the Galápagos subspecies Chelonoidis nigra abingdonii, died in 2012, aged over 100. He remains the only chelonian to have been given an obituary in this newspaper. Now a row has broken out over his final resting-place.

After two years of taxidermic preparation, his remains went on display this month at a natural-history museum in New York. The controversy is about what happens when he returns to Ecuador in January. George was found on Pinta Island in 1971, but spent his final decades at the Charles Darwin Foundation in Puerto Ayora, on Santa Cruz, another Galápagos island. The islanders would like to have him back; the foundation has a small display area. But Ecuadorean officials think he would be dangerously exposed to heat and humidity there.

One idea is to exhibit him in Quito, at least until Santa Cruz has a suitable display. But officials are unsure where in the capital to put him. The government’s big museums focus on art and history. Politics counts against the science museum, owned by the municipality, which has since May been in the hands of Mauricio Rodas, an opposition mayor. The Vivarium, a herpetology centre, is run by a private foundation, but President Rafael Correa abhors what he calls “NGO-ism”. A country as proud of its biodiversity as Ecuador should surely set aside money for a proper natural-history museum. That would be a legacy worthy of any tortoise.

This article appeared in the The Americas section of the print edition under the headline "Heaven and shell"

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